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An Intern's Nottdance Experience

I was fortunate enough to be accepted for a marketing internship at Dance4.

Upon arrival, I had received a warm welcome from the staff and was shown around the international Centre for Choreography.

As the week of Nottdance 2017 commenced, the office was so busy that I had to get stuck right in. The Marketing Officer, Maria introduced herself by saying ‘you’ll end up running away from me.’ I did not believe her as I have a LOT of patience. Immediately after, however, the first task I got was to prepare 100 festival lanyards… :) As the day progressed I had a crash course with David on how to work the computers and the phones; who knew it would be so complex? All this time I thought I was good with computers...

Day 2 was the most eventful day, I would say. It started with me dropping hot chocolate all over myself. After arriving at iC4C, my task was to learn how to schedule Tweets and Facebook posts and prepare them for the upcoming festival. In the afternoon, Maria and I set off to go collect the 80 balloons we ordered in the festival colours. It was fun when I set back to iC4C in the cab with around 60 balloons and Maria followed on with the rest; ending the day with balloon tying.

The festival began on Wednesday, and I was really excited. My day begun with dropping some balloons to Wollaton Hall and Nottingham Lakeside Arts, however, because nothing in life is that simple, I end up getting really lost. The satnav ends up directing me through a no entry and a taxi driver (clearly feeling very sorry for me) noticed how lost I was and told me to follow him all the way to Lakeside. So as I finally found my way, getting hit by a bunch of the balloons in Wollaton Park, and reaching iC4C safely, my festival experience started.

During the festival I was able to practice a wide range of skills from marketing tasks to rapid dishwasher stacking, to note taking in the Nottdance Debates series and welcoming guests, artists and audiences. Although the first week was based around the festival, I still managed to work in depth in many areas of marketing such as collecting feedback forms, creating audience surveys, data input into the database system, networking, engaging with artists and audiences, tweeting around the festival, and creating monthly social media reports for future analysis.

In comparison to many dance festivals I have attended, the Nottdance experience was very unique as Dance4 had incorporated discussions and debates addressing frequent issues of the contemporary dance world, open classes as well as performances all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Many festivals primarily focus on having as many different performances as possible. In these festivals a segregation is often created between the artists and audience members and the two rarely meet in an intimate, more personal setting as it happened here. Nottdance allowed you to understand the artists and their work/thoughts/ideas in depth and really connect with the pieces and subjects that were being addressed.

Overall, I had a phenomenal experience, enhancing skills and knowledge in the office side of the dance sector as well as making some lovely friends at Dance4. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at iC4C and feel privileged to have worked as part of the organisation. ____________________________________________________________________________________